On DVD: Pina reveals the robotics of dance

Not even Avatar convinced me to spring for a 3D Blu-ray player (and matching TV) on a film critic’s salary. But Wim Wenders’ dance documentary Pina may push many a hesitant adopter over the edge.

The film opened at Toronto’s Lightbox in December 2011, on its way to an Oscar nomination for best documentary. (It somehow lost to the football movie Undefeated; something in that name, perhaps.)

Wenders had known German choreographer Pina Bausch for decades, and the two had long discussed making a chronicle of her incredible work. In a fascinating, 45-minute making-of documentary on the new three-disc set (in stores July 10), Wenders describes the triple stroke of luck that finally made it possible.

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First, there was the wide availability of 3D filmmaking, ushered in by James Cameron’s space opera about the blue cat people of Pandora. “A door opened widely, and all of a sudden the third dimension, space itself, was available to filmmakers,” he says, a little breathlessly.

Next, when Wenders went looking for an expert in the newly popular technique, he found one in François Garnier — who also happened to be his next door neighbour. Garnier then introduced him to his third piece of good luck, Alain Derobe, who carries the important title of stereographer in the film’s credits.

In a cruel twist of irony, however, Bausch herself died just two days before filming was set to begin, and five days after being diagnosed with cancer. Although Wenders and the company of dancers were despondent, they decided to push ahead with the film as a tribute to the 68-year-old’s life work.

“It felt so strange,” he says on the DVD, describing the first scene they shot. “Café Muller was the first piece I had ever seen of Pina Bausch, and now it also was the first one we were going to shoot, and Pina was not in front of the camera and not behind it either.”

Wenders goes on to describe the technical challenges of filming fast-moving dancers in three dimensions. He was thrilled at first by how the cameras could present not just depth, “but how this new language is able to show people in their corporality, their physicality.”

And yet when one of those people moved too quickly in rehearsal, “all of a sudden he had several arms, like an Indian goddess. It was unacceptable to record dance with such a lack of elegance.” Wenders experimented with adding extra blur or extra sharpness in post-production, and with different frame rates, before finding a solution that fit the project.

The 3D camera is actually two cameras, stacked one atop the other and shooting through a semi-transparent mirror to mimic the seven-centimetre space between our eyes. Mounted at the end of a huge crane, it is an imposingly bulky device, but Wenders and his team control it with finesse until it glides across the stage like one of the dancers.

The stage was outlined by a grid to help the camera operators, though it made Wenders sound more like a NASA mission controller than a film director. “Go back to Charlie Delta eight when I tell you,” he says. “We move left on the light to Delta Echo four five.”

We also see a camera operator strapped to a 3D Steadicam, which is made all the more cumbersome by the heavy cable running from it to a recorder. But by the final scene of the film, the crew had managed to do away with the cable, and the 3D rig became freer. It’s like watching the development of film techniques in fast-forward.

Although much of the dance in Pina was shot onstage, a few of the performances take place surreally out of doors, in and around Wuppertal, Germany, where the troupe is based. Wenders explains that the idea came from Bausch, who had once directed a dance film set outside, 1990’s Complaint of an Empress.

Those outdoor dances were also part of a conversation between Wenders and the performers. He says he “asked the dancers questions about Pina that they answered … not with words, but with dance … with something Pina’s eyes had been on and that they worked on together.”

The result is a breathtaking film that will wow even those (like myself) who know little about the art of dance. The three-disc set includes 2D Blu-ray and DVD copies for those not ready to make the leap to the third dimension.

A MAN AMONG SPIDER-MEN

Cashing in on the recent spider-frenzy — The Amazing Spider-Man’s $35-million haul was the best Tuesday opening ever — Sony has craftily re-released the original Tobey Maguire trilogy in shiny new Blu-ray editions with loads of extras.

Among the bonus features on the first movie is a “historical documentary” (I guess 50 years in comics qualifies as history). It’s called Spider-Man: The Mythology of the 21st Century, and features interviews with Spider-Man creator Stan Lee and with some of the writers and artists who have worked on the comic over the years.

Lee is understandably proud of his creation. “It’s a little bit like Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse,” he says. “The minute you say Stan Lee, the people who don’t think, ‘Who’s Stan Lee?’ think of Spider-Man.”

Lee’s favourite Spider-Man comic-book story is the time the superhero received a cheque for $1,000 made out to “Spider-Man.” Alas, when Peter Parker got to the bank (in costume), he was refused service because he didn’t have any ID.

Given the number of artists who have worked on Spider-Man over the years — including the father/son team of John Romita Sr. and Jr. — Lee notes that “the characters are always pretty much in a state of flux.” There was even a comic-book reboot in 1999; not as fast as the movie do-over, but proof that with great power comes great replicability.

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NEW TO BLU-RAYBarbarellaThe Horse WhispererPhenomenonUnder the Tuscan Sun

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